Category Archives: States

Beth and I pivoted from plan A, the Space X launch, to plan B, a flight to the keys. We made a stop in Lakeland, Fl for fuel & lunch only to find the old standby restaurant, Hallbacks, to be a “little disappointing”. The rest of the flight went great, so come along on our video journey to Key West! Part 2, will be out soon…

Beth & I take our annual trip to Natchitoches, LA to view the Christmas decorations and visit all of the downtown shops. Can’t go to Natchitoches with eating at Mamma’s and visiting the Kaffie-Frederick General Mercantile Store! Ride along on this beautiful winter day in the deep south…

Beautiful Saturday to Fly… Just a short post to show the video we made while at the Copiah County, MS Fly-In a few weeks ago. We had a GREAT turn out with some really nice planes! Good food, FAA Wings credit, cheap gas, and I found someone to buy my old magnetos… perfect day!

Overall… our trip to Oshkosh & Airventure 2013 went very well. The weather could NOT HAVE BEEN BETTER! Morning temps in the 50’s and mid afternoon highs in the 70’s made it really easy to sleep in the tent. We had very little rain and only one big gust of wind… No tents were harmed in the making of this adventure!

Attendance…seemed on par with last year and was confirmed this week by EAA. Over 10,000 planes made it to Oshkosh for the week. RV’s were well represented in homebuilt camping as you can see by the panoramic photo below… this was taken from the wing of our RV9A (click for larger view).

Show Changes and Cool Stuff…I think were, for the most part, good. I liked the new airshow format, the $2 water everywhere, the new food vendors with a much larger variety and TWO night airshows. The biggest thing missing this year was ALL military aircraft. We had no C-17’s or A-10’s on static display or the usual daily flybys from F-18 Hornets or F-22 Raptors. Thank goodness there is one person alive that can afford to privately own and operate a Harrier Jump Jet so that we can get our fill of noise on the flightline every afternoon!

Flying Car and a Jet Man… One of the neatest things we saw was the Terrafugia Transition (flying car) do its thing in public for the first time. It rolled out on its own power, unfolded the wings and took off to do a nice aerial display… then it landed, folded up its wings and drove off… pretty cool! The “Jet Man”, Yves Rossy, was interesting enough, but watching something 6,000 feet over your head that didn’t even make much noise left a lot to be desired. One of the “sleeper” displays of the week was the SubSonex single person V-tailed jet by Sonex Aircraft. I’m not sure how you would insure it, but with a $10,000 deposit you could reserve a production slot on this $125,000+ single seater to be delivered next year.

Shower House RANT… It wouldn’t be the EAA if we didn’t have something to complain about now would it? When you go to take a shower at home you expect to leave the bathroom cleaner than when you came in… not necessarily so if you shower at homebuilt camping. Try putting on fresh clothes with water ankle deep in dirty bath water… wet cloths & shoes, ain’t no fun! I know it costs money, but HBC could really benefit from a permanent structure like they now have on the North 40 with flush toilets and private bath stalls. I know we didn’t spend as much money on our homebuilt planes as the Bonanza Bums & Station Airheads that camp the North 40, but we are part of the reason over a half a million people show up every July. (OK, lots of my friends drive Bonanza’s and 206’s… just laugh, OK)

IA, New State… On the trip up to Oshkosh, we made a fuel stop in Dubuque, IA (KDBQ) and parked next to a familiar P-51 Mustang and our friend from home, Dan Fordice. Dan offered us lunch with the T-6 group that had been training there all week as he fired up “Charlotte’s Chariot” to beat the weather into KOSH. After a quick bite and some fuel we managed to get out in front of the long line of T-6’s as they formed up and headed north. After looking at my log when we returned, I realized that Iowa was a new state for our “land in all states adventure” – number 17 – a long way from all 49, but we are getting there!

Next Year?… you bet, we plan to be there. Where else can you spend a week in a tent with 10’s of thousands of propheads like ourselves that traveled across this beautiful country of ours to the aviation Mecca, OSHKOSH!

I think the highlight of my day today was when Paul began to explain how the bumble bee was responsible for the invention of Velcro! And that it was NASA that did the study! This all stemmed from a story on the radio (live radio, I might add – during the Trading Post segment. The Trading Post which died away everywhere else at least 30 years ago is alive and well in Arkansas). We don’t miss it when we’re here. Anyhow…when one guy explained to the other that the bumble bee was actually covered with hair. Not just his legs, but his “rear end” – as the polite Arkansan stated on the radio. I looked at Paul and said,”Ah, the unknown virtues of the hairy butted bumble bee”. If you know Paul, this is all it took as the blossoming and weaving of the story of the discovery and invention of Velcro by NASA using the bumble bee grew to enormous proportions. I looked over at my husband of 31 years to declare “bulls**t magnifique” and he could hardly contain his laughter. I told him he got an A+ for effort as it has been a long while since he had taken the time and effort to create the total bs explanation! This is one reason life has been so interesting for 31 years and absolutely why I will go to Oshkosh, WI for s 7th time and spend an entire week sleeping on the ground in a tent beside our airplane for a week. It’s because after that long, we still sincerely enjoy each others’ company and enjoy the same things in life in the same manner. I truly would wish this part of my life on everyone I know! It’s been a wild and wonderful ride and I can’t wait to see what’s around the next bend!!

“LIKE US”…if you have not done so yet, please go to our Facebook page and click “LIKE” – THANKS!

Our original plan… was to start our Oshkosh trip on Friday afternoon by heading to the camper in Arkansas for a couple of days, but the weather forecast for for Friday didn’t look very good. With this front coming in it could have delayed us several days, so we decided to get out in front of the weather and get to Arkansas Thursday night.

You wanna do what?… My phone call to Beth on the way home from work Thursday was interesting. “I think we can be packed and on the way to the airport in an hour” I said… I detected a hint of skepticism in her voice… “So you want to pack and leave tonight?” “Yep”, I said, “If we hurry, we can be on the ground by 9:00 pm in Flippin”. Beth has never been one to back down from a challenge, so by the time I got home she was ready and all I had to do was throw 10 days worth of t-shirts and tighty-whitys in my stuff sack and we were on our way!

Perfect Flight – See photo above… this was a great sunset flight. We touched down at KFLP at about 9:05, cranked “Jane” and headed to the camper to get the AC turned on. Sure enough, as forecast, the weather moved into north Arkansas about 9 am and by the time we would have left Friday it was a real mess, see photo below…

Fixed the Hooter Valve… Since we were a late arrival in Flippin, we decided to go to the airport and put the plane in a hangar before the weather came through Friday. After this was done, we took Jane back to the repair shop to have her defective “hooter valve” replaced… Long story, but she now runs much quieter!

As we drove by Dally’s fly shop, we saw our buddy Ron’s truck and stopped by to visit. After an hour of catching up and buying a few flys and tying supplies we had a plan to fish in the am. So, our plan now is to visit the Norfork in the morning to fish and head to Oshkosh on Sunday, the weather looks great there and we can’t wait!

“LIKE US”…if you have not done so yet, please go to our Facebook page and click “LIKE” – THANKS!